Video: Cops searching for abused girls

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - On Thursday News 13 obtained lapel video of officers’ frantic search for two young girls who had been badly abused.

The video shows the cops first encounter with the girls.

“Are you ok?” the officer asked.

The girls’ responses are inaudible.

The officer then asked, “What's your name sweetie? And what's your name sweetheart?”

The officer immediately calls his supervisor.

You can hear him say, “They I found them, I found them (inaudible) and they are down here and the kids don't look good man.”

A witness had come forward saying the girls had been kept naked, beaten and bruised inside the bathtub in their apartment near Coors and I-40.

The witness said the girl's mother, Roberta Marquez-Chavez, showed her the girls a month earlier.

A translator is helps the witness tell her story.

“Roberta told her ‘I have something to tell you but don't get mad,” the translator said.
The woman said Marquez-Chavez led her to the bathroom and pulled back the curtain.

“She (the witness) was describing that she saw two little girls; very thin, you could see their bones,” the translator said. “The girls looked at her (the witness) but didn't say anything.”

She said Marquez-Chavez told her she was going to get the girls help, but when that didn’t happen the witness called cops, this was two days before Christmas.

Cops immediately went looking for Marquez-Chavez, but she was gone.

A friend finally got her on the phone and passed it to the officer.

“Wherever you are right now you need to stop and meet with us,” the officer tells Marquez-Chavez on the phone.

She meets them in the Garcia’s parking lot on Central near Old Town; and cops waste no time.

“Where are the five-year-old and the three-year-old?” asked the officer.

“They are in that red truck,” said Marquez-Chavez.

The cop asks the older girl to stand up so he can get a better look at her.

“Don't be scared sweetheart, okay,” you can hear the officer say. “I promise nothing is going to happen.”

He then focuses on their mother.

“What's going to happen?” Marquez-Chavez asked.

“I don't know Roberta, I don't know,” answered the officer.

He asks about her live-in boyfriend, Jesus Acosta-Contreras, who's still wanted in the case. She tells him he is at work at a Taco Bell on Central and Coors. She then makes a chilling statement.

“He's going to kill me,” Marquez-Chavez said.

The girls were turned over to CYFD , and a doctor later determined the five year old had a skull fracture, bleeding in the brain, broken ribs and arms. Her sister had a broken wrist and back. Their injuries had never been treated.

Police officers starting heading toward the Taco Bell to pick up Acosta-Contreras but a supervisor called them off. APD called News 13 Friday and explained what happened.

APD pulled its logs Friday and said they show some officers did actually go to the Taco Bell immediately and surround it.

Supervisors said the call heard on the video was simply to alert regular patrol units to wait for undercover officers. Turns out Acosta-Contreras didn't show up for work that night and wasn't there. Police suspect he's now in Mexico.

Marquez-Chavez and Acosta-Contreras are both charged with child abuse. Marquez-Chavez is still behind bars . Police believe Acosta-Contreras may have gone to Mexico.